Unified Interior Regions

Region 8: Lower Colorado Basin

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The Lower Colorad Basin includes Arizona, southern Nevada, and souther California. The Regional Office, headquartered in Sacramento, provides Center oversight and support, facilitates internal and external collaborations, and works to further USGS strategic science directions. Our scientists do a broad array of research and technical assistance throughout the U.S. and across the globe.

News

Date published: September 28, 2020

Earth MRI Funds Critical Minerals Projects in Arizona

A total of $133,016 will fund new research and preserve important data across the Grand Canyon State.

Date published: August 10, 2020

RAMPS Newsletter - Summer 2020 Edition

This season's edition of the Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest Newsletter contains recent program highlights including research updates, new projects, field updates and more.

To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit: ...

Filter Total Items: 4
Date published: March 26, 2019
Status: Active

Defining Native Ranges of U.S. Inland Fishes

Understanding the native versus non-native range of a species can provide useful information about dispersal, population distribution patterns, and human mediated movement across hydrologic barriers. The USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) Program is working with partners to define native ranges of inland fishes in the United States to help identify which species should be included in the...

Date published: March 5, 2019
Status: Active

The Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Flood and Storm Tracker (FaST)

Storm-related flooding can lead to the potential spread of nonindigenous (or non-native) aquatic species into waterways they have not been seen in before. The USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species program has developed an innovative mapping tool to help natural resource managers with post-storm nonindigenous aquatic species detection and assessment efforts. 

Date published: April 11, 2016
Status: Active

Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) Program

Welcome to the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species (NAS) information resource for the United States Geological Survey. Located at Gainesville, Florida, this site has been established as a central repository for spatially referenced biogeographic accounts of introduced aquatic species. The program provides scientific reports, online/realtime queries, spatial data sets, distribution maps, and general...

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A group of people stand around a map laid out in the back of a truck while on a field trip.
November 13, 2019

Managing Fire on the US Mexico Borderlands

RAMPS met with DOI Office of Wildland Fire, US Customs and Border Patrol, and US Fish & Wildlife Service staff at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in southern AZ last November. The group is developing tools to reduce wildfire risk, conserve wildlife habitat and natural resources, and increase safety and security of border operations.

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Skeletons of junipers (old trunks leftover from chaining) dot a rangeland.
March 22, 2018

Juniper Skeletons

Thinning rangelands by removing trees such as juniper is a common mangement action done across the intermountain west. The goals of this type of vegetation treatment typically are to increase forage and habitat for grazing animals, improve soil conditions, and/or reduce risks of catastrophic fire. In this photo, skeletons leftover from a chaining treatment dot a range in

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Tamarisk growing along a river
April 22, 2006

A single species stand of nonnative tamarisk

Single species stand of nonnative tamarisk on the Lower Colorado River at Cibola National Wildlife Refuge, California

Filter Total Items: 7
EarthMRI - Lidar Explorer
September 28, 2020

A total of $133,016 will fund new research and preserve important data across the Grand Canyon State.

An infographic summarizing activities of the RAMPS program.
August 10, 2020

This season's edition of the Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest Newsletter contains recent program highlights including research updates, new projects, field updates and more.

To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit: https://listserv.usgs.gov/mailman/listinfo/ramps

Read more about how the network or RAMPS is enhancing restoration in drylands.

Picture of restoration plantings doing well at an experimental site.
July 22, 2020

RestoreNet is a networked ecological experiment testing restoration treatments across the arid Southwest. Seven experimental sites were installed in the Summer of 2018 on the rangelands of Northern Arizona. The experiments tested seed mixes with various treatments to increase revegetation success (see photos above). These are the results after the first year.

Read more about RestoreNet here.

An infographic summarizing activities of the RAMPS program.
May 18, 2020

This season's edition of the Restoration Assessment and Monitoring Program for the Southwest Newsletter contains recent program highlights including research updates from our RestoreNet experiment, recently awarded funding, field updates and more.

To subscribe to our newsletter, please visit: https://listserv.usgs.gov/mailman/listinfo/ramps

Get the latest updates from RAMPS here.

A USGS field team measures spring floodwaters at Chesapeake bay's largest tributary.
May 12, 2020

U.S. Geological Survey field crews are measuring flooding across the country as spring weather is in full swing. Warming temperatures, increased precipitation and snowmelt have caused moderate to major flooding in the upper Midwest, East Coast, Central Plains and the Southeast portions of the country.